Ex-NASA engineer Nohtal Partansky is automating the cannabis industry with his company Sorting Robotics, which makes machines like Stardust that dip pre-rolls in THC oil and kief. Each $250,000 unit can replace the work of multiple people, producing about 1,000 infused joints an hour. Big brands like Stiiizy and Tilray use his equipment, helping push Sorting Robotics to $11M in revenue this year and profitability since 2021.

Pre-rolls are now the fastest-growing cannabis category, worth $4.1B in 2024, with nearly half infused with extra THC. But adoption of robots is limited: cannabis remains illegal federally, machines are costly to run, and in some states manual labor is still just as efficient.

👉 Partansky is betting that as legalization expands and Big Tobacco enters cannabis, automation will dominate joint production.